


the house we built

by sapphical



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Living Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphical/pseuds/sapphical
Summary: As much as it stung, Satoshi couldn’t help but feel proud of his sister. She had grown so, so much in his absence.He was, anyways, until Satoko asked, “Are you upset because the thought of living with a cute girl makes you nervous?”How Satoshi and Shion built a home out of the torn-up shell of a house Teppei left behind, and in each other.
Relationships: Houjou Satoshi/Sonozaki Shion
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	the house we built

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softcombat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcombat/gifts).



*

When Satoshi opened his eyes the first thing he noticed was the ceiling, pristine white and so clean it might’ve been painted only a few hours before. It bore almost no resemblance to the ceiling he saw every morning as he woke and each night as he lay awake restless, with its fetid water stains and rain-swollen timbers.

He was not at Teppei and Tamae’s, the home where he and his sister were housed but not welcomed, and this realization sent a stab of fear prickling through him, the skin along his spine turning to gooseflesh. If he was here, Satoko was alone with those monsters. Something in his gut contracted hard, those feelings of fear turned physical and gripping his innards with fingers like ice. He tried to leave the bed — another indication he was not at his aunt and uncle’s home, where they all slept on futons he dutifully aired out each week — and found he could not.

It was as if all his limbs were asleep, prickling uncomfortably when he tried to move, with a particular fumbling weakness in his hands. Try as he might, he could not close his fist tight enough to pull the IV inserted in one arm free. How could these be the same hands which swung a heavy aluminum baseball bat with such confidence? What had happened to his body as he slept?

It was all too much. Satoshi felt his gorge rise sharply, so suddenly he had to clap a hand over his mouth, screw his eyes shut, and think of nothing but breathing in long and slow through his nose.

He remained scrunched up into miserable ball, not moving until a deep voice somewhere in front of him said, “Ah, Satoshi-kun. Welcome to the land of the living.”

Satoshi raised his head, just enough to see Doctor Irie standing at the foot of his bed. He’d recognize the girl standing just a pace behind Irie anywhere, even if she had, miraculously, grown out of her baby face in a single night.

Satoshi locked eyes with Satoko and held his arms out to her, all too familiar with the flushed face and furious blinking that always preceded her tears.

In an instant, Satoko had clambered onto Satoshi’s bed and between his arms, squeezing his ribs with all the strength her gangly limbs possessed. Already, he could feel the tears he expected dampen the shoulder of the hospital gown he hadn’t realized he was wearing. For several long moments they remained fixed in place, silent save for the snuffling sound of Satoko trying to breathe through her nose.

“Nii-nii—” she said, finally, “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

His hand, which had been hovering just above the curve of Satoko’s skull, fell limp on the bedsheets. Something was very, very wrong, and only seemed more so as Satoshi cast about trying to remember just how he had come to wake up in this sterile room. Of course he could remember the night of the Watanagashi, every moment of that night having been carved into his soul. His memories of the following day were far less clear, foggy with spent adrenaline. He could remember the mind-shattering panic of the police pinning him as the culprit responsible for Auntie Tamae’s murder, and the relief when Shion stepped between them, lying about their whereabouts during the festival though she had to know he was guilty. It was inexplicable, that she would defend a guilty man. After that, nothing.

How could he remember nothing else? Satoko’s appearance had tamped down the hysteria welling in him, but it began to rise once again as Satoshi tried in vain to remember what he had done after the police had led Shion away.

“I don’t know where I am,” Satoshi’s voice cracked, “how did I get here? Why won’t my fingers work?”

*

Satoshi didn’t expect any visitors, apart from Satoko. Sure, he’d been close with the other members of the games club, but as he understood it, their visits to the clinic had become infrequent as summer turned to fall and still he remained asleep. He couldn’t blame any of his friends for not wanting to while away their precious spare time watching him sleep. So it came as a surprise when one of the twins visited later in the day, still only a few hours after he had awoken from his sedation.

Satoshi couldn’t remember either twin wearing her hair cropped short in a chin-length bob, so her hairdo must have been a recent development. He watched how she carried herself, as if she had spent her adolescence balancing books atop her head and could no longer walk without anticipating how they’d topple, should she let her shoulders droop. The Mion he knew was too carefree to hold herself that way.

“Shion,” he said, his voice level so she would know he was not asking after her identity. It was impossible not to notice the way her expression opened up, like the final few petals of a blossoming flower unfurling to reveal its delicate center. Both Sonozaki twins wore their vulnerabilities on their sleeves, and Satoshi knew Shion had been scared he would mistake her for her sister.

With her, Shion carried a large shopping bag. It was filled with men’s clothing, Satoshi realized, as she set the bag down by his bedside and took a seat beside him. “Satoko called me,” Shion explained. “They’re for you. I didn’t know your size before, and it looks like you’ve grown, so I bought clothes in all the sizes they had.”

Satoshi opened his mouth to thank her, but Shion wasn’t looking at him. She rambled, filling the silence between them as she picked at her acrylic nails. “One of my uncles opened a boutique in Okinomiya while you were still asleep. He didn’t charge me, being family and all, but I told him I’d return what didn’t fit. I figured you’d want to change out of that hospital gown.” She was right — he wanted nothing more than to change out of the flimsy hospital gown that left his entire backside exposed. Sure, it wasn’t much of a problem while he was just laying in bed, but the weakness of his muscles meant he’d need someone to steady him as he shuffled to the bathroom, and that was humiliating enough without the added shame of his helper seeing his bare butt.

He removed the sweater that was folded at the top of the bag, holding it up. Shion may not have known his size, but it looked like it would fit perfectly. A grateful smile started to spread across Satoshi’s face, until he noticed the price tag tucked into the neck of the sweater. He pulled it free and as he stared at the number printed there. It was worth more than he’d have earned if he pooled the weekly paychecks from all his old part-time jobs together.

Suddenly, Satoshi’s smile felt plastered in place, so thick and heavy that the subtlest movement of his facial muscles would cause it to crack and fall to pieces. How could he accept such an expensive gift from a girl whose family hated him? They’d probably use this as more proof of his terrible character, cluck their tongues and say he was using Shion for the family’s resources. He could hear them now: _what else could we expect from a Houjou?_

“Ah, that’s really kind of you Shion-san. Thank you.” Satoshi paused, weighing his words carefully. “But I can’t accept a gift this nice. I’ll tell Satoko to bring me some of my old clothes when she visits next.”

Shion froze, and did not look up from her nails. “Ah, alright,” she said, finally. “I’m sorry for not asking, first.”

She wore a strange look on her face, as if she were suddenly unsure about having come here. The sight of it made guilt rise in the back of his throat like bile, and Satoshi cast about for something he could say just to keep the conversation going between them a little longer.

“Shion-san… thank you for taking care of Satoko for me. She was a lot happier than I’d ever seen her, when she talked about all the time you spent with her.” He had hardly believed Satoko when she had informed him about her new ‘nee-nee.’ The only time he had ever seen the two of them interact was when the twins had traded places for a day and Shion had worked herself into an irrepressible rage, throwing half the contents of her desk at a crying Satoko. Looking at Shion now, with her newly short hair and a hesitance around him which wasn’t there before, it was obvious how much had changed since his disappearance.

“Well, I didn’t help Satoko out just because you asked me to. Believe it or not, I’ve had a lot of fun spending time with her, and I’ve helped her play some hilarious pranks on the club. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do, if you want to defeat nee-nee and become her favorite sibling again.” Shion said, shooting him a devilish grin.

“No way! The bond between a girl and her big brother is special, you can’t defeat that with just a few pranks!” Satoshi replied, pouting slightly.

“But there’s a huge difference between regular old pranks and the trump cards we use to win punishment games!”

They both laughed as they quipped back and forth, dispelling all traces of the awkward formality that had hung heavy between them.

Already, Satoshi was certain he’d feel the aftershocks of his contraction of Hinamizawa Syndrome and subsequent kidnapping throughout the rest of his life. Yet if he had a thousand lives to live, he’d let it happen every time, so long as it let Shion and Satoko come together like this.

*

Satoshi could feel the beginnings of a headache stirring just behind his forehead. “Hold on, you’ve been living with Shion-san? When did that happen?”

“Well, she never really asked if Rika and I wanted to move in _officially_ , or anything. But we’ve stayed over pretty much every night since Watanagashi,” Satoko replied without even looking up from the math workbook spread on her lap. Satoshi had been awake a week now, and Chie-sensei could only excuse her missing assignments for so long. She had taken to doing her homework scrunched up in the room’s hard plastic chairs, occasionally letting Satoshi flip through her workbooks and point out her errors. Every day without fail, when visiting hours were over, an imposing man Satoshi had never seen before came to pick up Satoko and take her home. To Shion’s apartment, apparently. “It just feels weird to sleep at Rika’s now. It’s kind of far from school, but nee-nee’s got this bodyguard and he’s got a car, so he drives us to school and back every day. You’ve seen him, actually — the guy who drives me home.”

“Isn’t that kind of impractical?” Satoshi asked, hating the way he sounded like a nag who didn’t want his sister having any fun. It was just, well, he had assumed he would go live with Satoko once he was discharged from the clinic, where she had managed to house herself in his absence. But he couldn’t possibly intrude on Shion’s hospitality, moving into her apartment without being invited. Especially not with everything that lay unsaid between them.

Satoshi had never been particularly observant, but he knew Shion had liked him, back before he disappeared. He would’ve had to be blind not to notice it, with how obvious she was. She had lied to the police for him, after all, and taken her sister’s place a half-dozen times just so she might hold a conversation with him. Back then, the circumstances hadn’t been right and they hadn’t had the time they needed. They couldn’t work out what they wanted to be to one another. And now—

Now Satoshi was too much of a damn coward to make the first move.

Satoko shut her math book with a sigh, and fixed Satoshi with a look so stern, he could hardly believe it came from his twelve year old sister. “She’s lonely, nii-nii. You’d be lonely too, if you were stuck in Okinomiya while the rest of your friends lived in Hinamizawa. Up ’til now, her grandma hasn’t let her live in Hinamizawa with the rest of her family because she’s bad luck.”

When she spoke again, Satoko’s voice was hard, leaving no room for Satoshi to argue with her. “Shion’s my nee-nee, so I’m staying with her until she’s comfortable moving in with her family.”

It was almost humiliating, having Satoko explain the situation to him like he was a little kid. Satoshi was supposed to be the older brother, the one taking care of Satoko, and yet here she was — more mature than he had been at her age, and living independently. As much as it stung, Satoshi couldn’t help but feel proud of his sister. She had grown so, so much in his absence.

He was, anyways, until Satoko asked, “Are you upset because the thought of living with a cute girl makes you nervous?” When Satoshi refused to answer, Satoko’s face broke out into a wide, conspiratorial grin.

“Ohoho! Nii-nii has a crush on nee-nee,” Satoko shrieked gleefully, all thoughts of math tossed aside at the prospect of getting to tease her older brother about his relationship with Shion. He had always been easy to fluster, which Satoko had taken advantage of on numerous occasions, riling up Satoshi until he couldn’t get a single word out with all his stuttering.

“Hold on!” Satoshi yelped, the tips of his ears burning. “Don’t say that kind of thing so lightly, I didn’t say anything about having a crush on Shion-san!”

“Oho? You didn’t say anything about _not_ having a crush, either.” Satoko shrugged with the haughty air exclusive to preteens, that age where it was so easy for her to assume she knew everything about the world and the people living in it. “It’s too bad, really, that we won’t be living in nee-nee’s apartment. There Rika and I would have front row seats to your blossoming romance.”

He didn’t bother denying the accusation a second time, more interested in Satoko’s comment about them not living with Shion. Brow furrowed, he asked, “Where are we going to live, then? I thought you just said you wanted to stay with Shion-san.”

“Really, you’re going to imply I’d leave nee-nee behind? How rude, I’d never do something like that.” Satoko sniffed, affronted. “We’re just moving somewhere a little bigger! A few months ago, a lawyer called and said Uncle Teppei passed away. Because he was our guardian, that means his house belongs to us now, just so long as we make the payments every month. I was _about_ to tell him he might as do what he pleased with the house, since he could hardly expect a twelve year old to make the mortgage payments. But nee-nee said she’d give us the money, as long as we needed it, because it’s not like she needs it for anything.”

It was a lot to process: Teppei’s death, the house, Shion’s contribution to the mortgage. He had refused to let her buy him clothes, calling the offer too generous, when here she was, paying for the roof over their heads. It left an awful sour taste in his mouth. Why was Shion so insistent on giving them handouts? They weren’t weak, they didn’t need anyone’s help to survive.

He tried to ignore the hint of doubt creeping in the back of his mind, whispering that the price of monthly mortgage payments was likely far more than he’d ever manage to earn with the kinds of minimum wage part-time jobs he could get his hands on.

So Satoshi said nothing, and Satoko folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them, suddenly shy. When she spoke again, her voice was hushed, but no less determined for it. “We’re going to make it into a real home this time: you, me, Shion, and Rika. We decided we’d wait to move in ’til you woke up. It wouldn’t feel like home without you there.”

Satoshi sighed. He might as well let Satoko have her way and graciously accept Shion’s help. Because, really, there was no way he could keep Satoko from this, if it were what she truly wanted.

*

Rika and Shion were sitting on the stoop, heads bent toward each other in conversation when Irie’s car ground to a stop in front of the house which had once belonged to Teppei Houjou. The girls looked up at the car, their conversation momentarily forgotten, and waved in sync at its three passengers. Satoko, who rode in the back seat on the side closest to her friends, waved back. She unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to open the car door. It wouldn’t budge.

“I know it must be difficult saying goodbye to two such charming individuals, but you have to let us go at some point, coach.” Satoko quipped.

Irie turned to look at the two passengers riding in the back seat and unlocked the car with a sigh. “Are you sure you don’t want any help? It’s been sitting empty over a year now, and you have no idea what state Teppei left it in. You might not be able to clean the place up on your own.”

Satoshi felt a prickle of irritation and forced himself to smile at Irie. He had always hated adults’ pity, even more so than their contempt, and after a lifetime without meeting an adult who felt anything towards him other than those two emotions, he had lost the ability to distinguish between those and other, more subtle emotions. What he sensed from Irie was not pity at all, but rather genuine concern for him and his sister.

“Thanks coach, but we’re fine.” Satoshi replied, opening the car door and fumbling with the crutches that had been stored on the floor of the back seat. It was suddenly apparent getting out of the car without falling over would be much more difficult than Satoshi had anticipated.

Irie frowned and turned to face the dusty road spread out in front of the car. He waited until Satoshi had managed to get out of the car with his sister’s help and the two of them had slowly hobbled halfway to where their friends stood in front of the house. “Satoshi,” he said. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Recovery takes time, and the best thing you can do for yourself right now is to relax.”

“I’ll be careful,” Satoshi assured him, turning away as he heard Irie put his car into gear, protecting his eyes from the cloud of dust that spread into the air as the car reversed and headed back the way they had come.

Finally, the four of them were alone together. The sun hung directly overhead, and though the day had reached it’s warmest point, the autumn sunshine couldn’t ease the chills they felt when the wind blew.

“Let’s get inside,” Rika said, burrowing her chin into the collar of her jacket. The other girls quickly agreed with her, the three of them bounding up the steps and in front of the door. Shion bent her head and removed a knotted length of string from around her neck. Hanging from the string were a pair of keys, strung so Shion could wear them next to her heart. She hardly needed to look as she selected the one she wanted and unlocked the door. She didn’t open it though, not yet.

Shion turned back, taking in the sight of Satoshi leaning uncomfortably on his crutches, unmoved from his place in the middle of the road. She didn’t need to say the words _are you alright?_ — they were written plainly in the pinch of her eyebrows and wide eyes.

“We don’t have to do this, if you want to just stay somewhere else—” Shion blurted, the words bubbling up out of her with hardly any pause between them. It seemed Satoshi wasn’t the only one nervous about this whole venture. He shook his head.

“Oh! No, it’s not nothing like that. I’m not nervous,” he was. He’d never imagined willingly come back to this place, and here he was, about to make it his home, all on the whims of his younger sister, her friend, and a girl he had a crush on. “I’m just not used to the crutches yet.”

Shion seemed to understand he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and nodded. She waited until Satoshi had hopped up the steps on his own, and opened the front door wide.

Tamae and Teppei hadn’t been hoarders, but by no means had they been clean people. Dirty laundry and garbage littered the floor, and seemed to have only bred more garbage in the past year. Mold bloomed on the tatami mats where beer had been spilled and gone uncleaned, and a few missing roof tiles meant rainwater had leaked into the house.

Dirty though the place was, the house didn’t feel abandoned. The pairs of slippers positioned in the entryway and the dirty dishes still stacked in the sink gave the impression that Tamae and Teppei were simply out of the house on errands and would be back shortly.

Satoshi crutched his way inside, marveling at the interior of the house like he was seeing it all for the first time. There was his school uniform, wrinkled in a heap on the floor just inside his bedroom, exactly where he had discarded it in a rush the day he had disappeared, having been late for work. He remembered now, what Satoko had said about Teppei leaving in a panic when two nights had passed and still he hadn’t come home. That she had gone to Rika’s that night and never come back, leaving everything in the house untouched.

Until now.

Satoshi turned to the girls, and tried not to grimace as he saw Satoko and Rika look at him with varying degrees of expectation. As if this whole thing had been his idea and it were only natural that he be in charge.

“H-Hey, don’t look at me like that! Why do you think I’ve got any idea where to start?” Satoshi stammered.

Thankfully, Shion appeared at his hip, hiding a smile behind a cupped palm. “Jeez, I thought it was obvious we have to start by getting rid of all this trash. But I guess it’d take more than half a brain to realize that. I might’ve overestimated you, Satoshi-kun.”

“Yeah, okay, that much was clear.” Satoshi retorted, pouting. “What I _meant_ was, do we all tackle cleaning up the front room together? Or do we split up? What’s going to be the most efficient?”

“Weeeell,” Shion began. “I was thinking we could make it into one of our punishment games. We all split up and see who can bag the most trash in an hour?”

Rika broke in. “We need more rules than that. How do we count ‘the most trash’? If we’re just basing it on how many bags we end up with, I can see _someone_ finishing with twice as many half-filled bags.” She stared at Satoko as she said it, who just shrugged. The accusation hadn’t been particularly off-base.

“We have a scale in the bathroom,” Satoshi mused. “We could see who’s collected the most trash by weight?”

“Perfect!” Shion cheered, and the two younger girls grinned in agreement.

Before they could start their game, however, Satoko cleared her throat. “We still haven’t made the most important decision yet. If this is really a punishment game, what’s the punishment for the person who ends with the least trash?”

The group paused to think. Knowing he was likely to end up the loser, battling muscle weakness, Satoshi was hesitant to suggest anything too strenuous or humiliating. The others seemed just as hesitant, if their long silence meant anything.

Finally, Rika spoke. “How about Satoshi-kun cooks the rest of us dinner when he loses, ni-pah!”

“Even Rika-chan’s got no faith in me, huh? Ouch.”

To soften the blow, Rika stood on her tiptoes and reached up to ruffle a hand through Satoshi’s hair. He grumbled, and the other three just laughed.

*

Satoshi tried not to look too self-satisfied when he informed the girls what time it was. “It’s been over a half hour since all the day’s meats and veggies went on sale. Even if we went now, there won’t be anything left. Guess I won’t have to cook dinner after all, huh?”

“Maybe if the rest of you hadn’t been so darn slow, we might’ve made it in time,” Satoko said, looking at Satoshi in particular.

“No, _I_ _’m_ sorry,” Shion replied, “I thought maybe it might be too much in one day, cleaning everything up and hauling it to the dump. I should’ve insisted we wait until tomorrow.”

The group sat huddled in the rest-flecked bed of a pickup truck abandoned near the edge of the dump. Not knowing what else to do with all of the garbage that had cluttered the Houjou family home, they had brought their collection of trash bags here once they had finished their game. Surprising no one, Satoshi had ended up with the bags that weighed the least.

“Satoshi-kun might have gotten out of his punishment today, but that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook for dinner tomorrow,” said Rika.

He sighed, but didn’t bother arguing. Instead, Satoshi pointed out the boxy metal structure roughly in the center of the junkyard. “Does the incinerator still run?”

It felt strange, having to ask such basic questions about the town where he had spent his entire life. Satoshi had only been asleep a single year, and yet he couldn’t help but feel like a fish out of water, somehow no longer at home here.

The girls nodded, and began gathering up the black plastic garbage bags they’d filled, dragging them toward the small structure. For years now, the town council had begged Hinamizawa residents to burn any garbage small enough to fit inside the incinerator, hoping that would curb the landfill’s rapid expansion. Still, most were too tired or lazy to drag their trash there, and were Satoshi getting rid of anything else, he might simply have left it at the edge of the dump and walked away.

It felt important, in some awful, undefinable way, that they make sure the last of Tamae and Teppei burn. To make sure that there would never be anything left to remind them. It was the closest they could get to catharsis just yet.

They stayed like that a long time, just sitting in silence and watching smoke billow from the incinerator as what was left of Tamae and Teppei’s worldly possessions burned. All the while, the sun steadily sank below the horizon behind them.

*

Dinner that night was nothing but a collection of rice and ready-made side dishes purchased from the store on the walk back home. They were all too hungry to complain, having worked all afternoon to clear the inside of the house. Free of debris, it looked like an entirely new, if sterile, place. Before, there had hardly been enough floor space in the main room to fit a group clustered around Teppei’s folding mahjong table. Now there was enough room for all four of them to line their futons in a row, should they so choose.

Satoko and Rika had moved their bedding from Shion’s apartment at some point, and lay their futons next to each other in the front room, agreeing on a location seemingly without any conversation spoken aloud. Satoshi had never noticed how in sync the two girls were, and had to wonder if this was new or simply a result of him being spread too thin to pay much attention to their interactions.

Before he could retreat to his room for the night, the pair pounced on him, each taking hold of a bone-thin wrist.

“You and nee-nee need to sleep out here, too,” Satoko said, her bottom lip sticking out and shoulders going up in a way that Satoshi recognized from innumerable afternoons spent trying to tutor her, and from when she was a year old and first learned the word _no_. Nothing he said mattered now. Satoko always got her way when she was like this.

Shion, who had been hovering by the entryway, looking uncertain as to whether she should stay or go, blinked in surprise when Satoko mentioned her. “Really? You want me to stay the night?”

“Of course we want you to stay the night!” Satoko looked affronted. “This place isn’t just for me and nii-nii. It’s a home for all of us! And if Keiichi-kun or Mion-san or Rena-san ever found they didn’t have a place that felt like home anymore, it’d be open to them too! You guys are more than just friends: you’re family.”

The bow of Shion’s lips trembled, almost like she were about to cry. Yet before the first tear could fall, she had already crossed the room and bundled Satoko into her arms. She stayed there for a long time without saying anything, simply holding the younger girl and swaying slightly as if Satoko were the anchor keeping her upright.

Satoshi had never seen Shion so vulnerable before. It was shocking. Before now, he had always seen her as cheery and reliable, the kind of person who would always be there ready to lend her shoulders to lean on. It seemed stupid now, assuming she was somehow less fragile than the rest of them. Had he only thought as much because he had never gotten the chance to really know her?

Shion deserved better than that. She deserved a family who saw and loved each part of her.

As the two girls stood there clinging to one another, Satoshi retrieved his futon and the spare, lining them up so that Shion could sleep next to Satoko and he would take the position on the end.

He was so exhausted from the day’s work that he was asleep almost as soon as he curled up beneath the bedding.

*

When Satoshi awoke to a searing pain in his calf, it was still dark. Hissing through clenched teeth, he pushed back the bedding to expose his legs and pressed fleeting little touches to his calf trying to sus out the source of his pain. Quickly enough he was able to locate the knot of pain sitting just under his skin. Not knowing what else to do, he dug his thumbs into the flesh and massaged the center of the pain, stifling his reactions so as not to wake anyone.

Satoko and Rika slept soundly a few meters away. Neither was quite snoring, but the sound of their slow breath was still audible in the small space. Beside him, Shion’s futon was empty but looked recently slept-in, the rumpled bedding pushed back. The girl herself was nowhere to be seen, which was worrying enough to distract Satoshi from his futile attempts to massage away the cramp burning in his calf.

Needless to say, when he heard the sound of the toilet flush down the hall Satoshi felt beyond stupid for having worried. Seconds later, Shion crept back into the room, her footsteps as silent as a cat’s. In the darkness Satoshi couldn’t read her facial expression as she paused in her movements, but clearly she had realized he was also awake.

Without a word, Shion moved through the main room on silent feet and into the kitchen where Satoshi couldn’t see her. The throb of pain in his leg still too persistent to try and fall back asleep, Satoshi grabbed one of his crutches from where he had laid it down next to his futon and struggled to his feet like an old man.

He wasn’t half as stealthy as Shion as he painstakingly made his way to the kitchen. It felt as if each thud of his crutch against the tatami was loud enough to echo, and Satoshi found himself constantly looking back over his shoulder to check the girls were still asleep. Satoko mumbled something unintelligible and curled into an even tighter ball, and at one point Rika opened her eyes, much to Satoshi’s horror. The little girl yawned, her eyelids fluttering shut almost immediately as she thankfully fell back into a deep slumber, allowing Satoshi to make it to the kitchen without disturbing anyone significantly.

Shion leaned against the countertop, fuzzy pajama sleeves pushed up to her elbows as she filled a glass of water from the tap. Surely with all the noise she could tell Satoshi had followed her, but she still threw a glance back over her shoulder, as if confirming he was really there.

Satoshi pressed his lips together in a smile which he hoped looked marginally less awkward than it felt. If Shion found it strange, she didn’t say anything. She simply turned off the tap and faced him. The silence stretched out between them, heavy and awkward, and Satoshi realized he hadn’t been alone with Shion since she had visited him at the clinic.

“Is everything okay?” Satoshi finally asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

“Oh, yeah,” Shion replied. “I just have trouble sometimes, falling asleep.”

Had she been laying in her futon trying to fall asleep this entire time? He wasn’t sure what time it was now, but that couldn’t be healthy.

“Has this been going on a while, or…” Satoshi trailed off, leaving the words _just since Watanagashi_ unsaid. If the festival name felt bitter and heavy in his mouth, he couldn’t even imagine how Shion must feel about it.

Shion gave him a sad little smile. “It started a little while after you disappeared, actually.” Her gaze fell to the glass of water in one hand, which she stared at as if it were the most absorbing thing in the entire room.

“I’m sorry about that,” Satoshi said, trying not to grimace as the pain in his leg resumed throbbing. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Can we sit down?”

Though Shion nodded just seconds after he asked, Satoshi was already lowering himself to the kitchen floor, letting out a shaky breath as he was able to take his weight off his weakened legs. Shion quickly joined him sitting on the ground, folding her legs up underneath her.

When they were both settled, Shion said simply, “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t be sorry.”

Satoshi sat there silently, feeling dumb for not knowing what to say in reply. As it turned out, perhaps saying nothing was the perfect response. Shion’s gaze flickered upwards, meeting his own, and slowly she filled the silence between them.

“When you disappeared, I kind of fell apart. You were the only person who was ever nice to me, and — I don’t know, — I guess I was scared you’d always be the only one, and I’d have to spend the rest of my life as the unwanted twin.” In her lap, Shion’s fingers tangled themselves into fleshy knots, betraying her anxiety. “I scared nee-chan pretty bad. She started forcing me to leave the apartment and join the club for activities.”

She sighed, and continued: “It was Satoko who pulled me out of it. I never realized how amazing she was until she told me she was learning to be independent so that when you came home, you wouldn’t have to push yourself so hard all the time, and could spend more time with the club and the baseball team, and finally get to be a normal teenager.”

Satoshi felt something in his chest contract. Satoko had been so open with him about everything he had missed while he was asleep, and yet he hadn’t heard a thing about this. His sister had a heart of gold, even if she kept it hidden, and he didn’t deserve her.

Shion let out a shaky little huff, like she was trying to laugh but couldn’t muster the energy. “I couldn’t believe how selfish I was, wallowing in my self pity because I’d lost an acquaintance, when she’d lost a brother. So I decided I’d look after her until you came back and do whatever I could to make her life a little easier. It’s just—” Shion’s voice caught in her throat and for a second she sounded almost strangled. “It’s just… I really liked being her nee-nee. But I don’t want to be too clingy when she’s not my real sister.”

“Hey,” Satoshi said, voice soft. “Were you paying attention at all earlier when Satoko called you family? You don’t need to back off because you’re not related by blood.”

He wanted to stand, close the gap between them, and ruffle her hair like he had the first time they had met, but he knew his legs weren’t strong enough to carry him to her.

Instead, Satoshi smiled at her, as wide as he could manage. “I think you’re a really kind person, Shion-san. I hope you stick around so I can get to know the real you,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry I never got the chance, before.”

He only caught a glimpse of her smile before she hid it behind one hand, but it was bright enough to have lit up the whole house.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Second chapter forthcoming!


End file.
